I have failed to make the internal Winmodem of my Dell laptop work with Puppy Linux; the modem wizard tells me it is successful in installing dev/ttySLO (going by memory) but with no IRQ, but it will not dial out. Hence I am considering buying a modem.

However, it seems to me that there is a danger of acquiring another Winmodem. How can one identify, from the box in the shop, whether a modem is a full hardware one or a Winmodem? I am guessing, but it's no more than a guess, that if the box mentions other operating systems than versions of Windows, then probably it will work with Puppy, or putting it the other way, if the box only mentions Windows operating systems, it is to be avoided. Can anyone confirm or contradict this? I found a little USB modem for only about $30 that was attractive, but it only mentioned Windows OS. I also found that in CompUSA at least, there were no PCMCIA modems on display.

Incidentally, my computer does not have a serial port, so I cannot buy a serial external modem.

I have failed to make the internal Winmodem of my Dell laptop work with Puppy Linux; the modem wizard tells me it is successful in installing dev/ttySLO (going by memory) but with no IRQ, but it will not dial out. Hence I am considering buying a modem.

However, it seems to me that there is a danger of acquiring another Winmodem. How can one identify, from the box in the shop, whether a modem is a full hardware one or a Winmodem? I am guessing, but it's no more than a guess, that if the box mentions other operating systems than versions of Windows, then probably it will work with Puppy, or putting it the other way, if the box only mentions Windows operating systems, it is to be avoided. Can anyone confirm or contradict this? I found a little USB modem for only about $30 that was attractive, but it only mentioned Windows OS. I also found that in CompUSA at least, there were no PCMCIA modems on display.

Incidentally, my computer does not have a serial port, so I cannot buy a serial external modem.

Kenneth Gundry

I am sure not having any luck with PCMCIA but any modem that mentions working with DOS or win3.1 has to be hardware modem as those operating systems dont support winmodems. Course we are now so far away from DOS/3.1 days that modem might not mention it even if it was a hardware modem. If it just says linux that doesnt mean much as it may have some half assed linmodem driver. May or may not work under puppy. There are usb adapters for serial modems available. I dont have any experience with them though. Apparently they are an option on newer computers without a serial port.

Dell has been slipping lately, but they used to have top-notch tech support. If you call or email them, especially if you have any warranty left, they might be able to help. They support Red Hat after all.

Many thanks, everyone. I would of course prefer to make the existing internal modem work, rather than resort to a different one. I have made some progress. I revised the initializing string from the incorrect one that Gkdial imposes, and now in Cutecom, I can enter AT and get the correct response OK from the internal softmodem. However, if I enter ATDT followed by a telephone number, I get the response "No carrier". I think that is what you would expect with a functioning modem but no telephone line plugged in .... but there is a line, and the modem works with XP. Any suggestions? I think I found somewhere a message from someone who had the same problem, but I cannot find it again, and I don't know that it was resolved.

Further to my message of a few minutes ago, I realize that there is a distinction between "no carrier" and "no dialtone", and therefore the former is not necessarily merely an indication of no telephone line.

not sure if this pertains to your situation but i've had puppy on 2 different partitions, one with working lucent winmodem. when i try & install on the other, modem wizard correctly ID's it, but can't allocate an IRQ. to get the second partition to see the winmodem I have to erase it from the first partition.

Try to start the modem init string with AT X0 . This should tell the modem to ignore the dialtone and go on with dialing. Make sure that you don't have other X setting in the string (ie X1, X2 etc), otherwise the last one will override the first.

Depending on your location you can also experiment with X1, X2 and X3, which allow for different line signals to be recognized, for example I have to use X3 to make analog modems work over Italian dialtones. This is sligthly better than X0, because you get a "busy" answer when the line is busy (as opposite to "can't dial").

The laptop only has the one partition, on which XP is installed. Puppy runs in a ramdisk, loaded from the CDrom, using the one NTFS file PUP001 to store settings and additional programs. Thus the main partition is not accessible (or if it could be, I have not tried to make it so so far). Hence I don't think the problem can be anything to do with partitions.

I tried various ATXx initializations, in vain, but I think the problem comes even sooner than that, because if I understand the function of ATX commands, they affect how the modem responds to dialtone, busy signals and the like. At present, the modem doesn't seem to care even whether there is a telephone line plugged in (even though it works correctly under XP).

I've had plenty of problems with winmodems in various laptops, and one bugger I just couldn't get to work under any flavour of Linux is the internal Lucent modem built into several older IBM notebooks, 11c1:0448.

So I finally gave up trying & bought an inexpensive used Xircom CBEMG-100 modem/Lan cardbus card from epay. Comes in handy, since the Thinkpad 570E I'm using doesn't have a LAN adapter.

I booted into Puppy Linux v. 1.0.5, ran the modem wizard from setup, ignored the Lucent modem that the wizard had discovered, clicked on ttyS4, which the wizard found immediately, set up my internet provider with Gkdial from the "Network" menu - and I'm online! Using this modem right now. That was the easiest modem setup under Linux ever. Great job, keep the little dog barking!

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